


Love is a Polaroid

by DeerstalkerDeathFrisbee



Series: True Love or Something [26]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/M, Family, Fluff, Friendship/Love, Gen, Love, M/M, established relationships - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-21
Updated: 2017-02-21
Packaged: 2018-09-26 01:02:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,106
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9855134
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DeerstalkerDeathFrisbee/pseuds/DeerstalkerDeathFrisbee
Summary: ...and they’re not in time with the music, waltzing like this, spinning in lazy circles, they’re not even waltzing correctly, but they’re laughing and sing-shouting together and it’s quite possibly perfect.There are many forms of love.





	

**Author's Note:**

> YOU ALL CONTINUE TO AMAZE ME, THANK YOU FOR ALL YOUR SUPPORT FOR THIS SERIES
> 
> So I read a curious little article on the Psychology Today website about the 'seven types of love' and, being both a nerd and Confirmed Voltrash, I immediately went FIC!!! 
> 
> So here's this thing, I used the same format as when I did a similar thing last year with a different series for a different fandom - basically I took each 'type' of love and wrote a one-sentence mini-fic for each. 
> 
> I put a link to the Psychology Today article in the endnotes if anyone's interested in checking it out.

**Love is a Polaroid**

**Philia – Love for Friends (Pidge and the boys)**

         Pidge doesn’t know how they do it, these strange boys she found one day long ago and far away – but they’re always exactly where and when she needs them, before she needs them – Hunk’s there to wrap her in bone-crushing hugs and talk in science gibberish and feed her homemade cupcakes and tell her when she needs to stop while Lance is always there with a joke and a smile and patient hands combing her hair when it’s frizzed itself into an angry dandelion poof around her head and on sunny days they’re in her yard, outside her door, yelling for her to come out and play (it’s enough, it’s more than enough, it’s a balm that soothes the sting of a lonely childhood, of being the odd one out, the weird, too-smart girl who couldn’t fit into place with the others), it’s enough and Pidge is happy, running, running, running, till it feels like her feet might just leave the ground and right at that moment of liftoff she swaps sharp-edged grins with Keith (and he knows a little something about being lonely too, doesn’t he) and she’s home with her lost boys and she’s flying.

 

**Storge – Familial Love (Shiro and Ms. Kogane)**

         It’s like his time in Afghanistan, his forgotten time, his lost years, has sharpened the memories he does have, has put them all in high-definition, 3-D, surround sound – he doesn’t remember everything but what he does remember he remembers exactly and he remembers the day he realized the magnificent power of his mother’s love, of how she can love completely, unconditionally, almost to the point of pain, and it wasn’t a big dramatic moment, it was simple and small as words whispered in the middle of the night after Keith fell asleep – “I love you boys so goddamn much, Shiro, but sometimes I wonder if I’ve been selfish, clinging to you like this,” her shaking her head, confused and maybe a little despairing, “I’d take a bullet for you, either of you, both of you, but that’s not the kind of love you need to thrive, that’s just what you need to survive…life’s about more than that…” – and he’s never forgotten her eyes, staring out the windshield into the night, probing the stars like they might be able to answer her questions for her…but they don’t and the moment ends, as these things tend to do.

 

**Agape – Universal, Altruistic Love (Coran)**

         Coran’s had a rather exciting life, all told, but there’s nothing quite like watching the children at the community center run around after Lance and the other Youth Coordinators young voices laughing and screaming with pure, unadulterated delight, “Mr. Lance, Mr. Lance, do the monster faces, do the monster voice, play with us, play with us – ” and Coran’s life has not been easy, he’s had his own little tragedies but that he is able to be here, to stride out of his office and ask if the kids have ever heard of the “very mysterious yelmor – oh you haven’t have you, well then, have I got a story for you” is a gift.

 

**Pragma – Practical Love (Shirogane and Stella)**

         Shirogane does not love Stella the way a young man loves – there were no emotional outbursts, no overblown pining or comi-tragic miscommunications in their courtship but there is the quietness of existing beside another person, of washing dishes shoulder to shoulder as she dries the plates, there are tired, understanding smiles at the end of long days and there are sweet moments when he reaches out and takes her hand as they walk down sidewalks on soft summer Saturdays and there is the reassuring pressure of her taking his hand in return and swinging their entwined fingers between them, there is the gentleness of mutual understanding – he looks in her eyes and finds something restful, something she returns and it is enough.

 

**Ludus –** **Playful Love (Keith and Lance)**

         Only Lance would say, “waltz with me, Keith,” and grab his hands and drag him into a dance as ‘Forest’ by Twenty-One Pilots comes on the radio and only Lance would say “I’m going to serenade you with your favorite existential crisis song because you’re a recovering Emo Child” and only Lance would laugh full-blown, full-out when Keith purposefully steps on his foot at that and only Lance would sing “ _down in the forest, we’ll sing a chorus, one that everybody knows”_ loud and surprisingly in-tune and only Lance would wiggle his eyebrows at Keith just like so until Keith is joining in on “ _hands held higher, we’ll be on fire, singing songs that nobody wrote_ ” and they’re not in time with the music, waltzing like this, spinning in lazy circles, they’re not even waltzing correctly, but they’re laughing and sing-shouting together and it’s quite possibly perfect.

 

**Philautia – Love for the Self, Self-Care (Shiro and Allura)**

         Shiro has to consciously think about doing things for himself sometimes, he has to take moments to himself to breathe deeply and find the place in him that tells him it’s okay to not think about other people for five minutes, to only focus on himself and what he needs and wants, to convince himself he’s not being selfish, that the world will not end if he takes some time to be Takashi and not Nurse Shirogane or big brother Shiro or The Good Son – sometimes he takes his car and goes on long, rambling drives, heading nowhere and everywhere all at once, just existing in the kind of limbo that can only be found when one is moving forward with no destination and recently, sometimes he takes Allura with him and they exist together, singing along to the radio and watching the world and not speaking, just…being.

 

**Eros – Romantic Love (Lance and Keith)**

         Sometimes, out of nowhere, Keith just kisses him or presses up close against his side or invades his personal space and just _exists_ there like it’s all he needs in the world, and Lance has no idea where these sudden bursts of affection come from and whenever he asks Keith just smiles at him a little lopsided and shrugs, and “I felt like it,” doesn’t seem adequate as only words but when Keith says it they mean something more, they mean that distant, unemotional Keith who doesn’t cry in movies and laughs like he’s surprised he’s doing it half the time looked at Lance and managed to be overcome by a _feeling_ and refuses to let go as they wrap themselves up in each other and burn like stars.

**Author's Note:**

> Fic title from 'Polaroid' by Imagine Dragons, which is a perfect angsty Keith song. 
> 
> Here's the link to the Psychology Today article: https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/hide-and-seek/201606/the-7-types-love


End file.
